A few weeks ago I was contacted by Koruhouse Press, asking if I was interested in reading and reviewing Samantha Armstrong’s first installment in her new dystopian trilogy: The Movement. Of course I said yes because I love dystopian books and the good people on Goodreads seemed to have really enjoyed it.
The book came out very recently; on April 3, 2018. Read the synopsis below:
A century after the Vermune virus devastated Earth’s population, all that remains of North America is a society segregated into two precincts: the Northerners who produce the Antidote, and the Southerners who are enslaved by it.
After the virus kills someone close to her, sixteen-year-old Mia begins questioning her life in the South. Desperate for answers, she joins The Movement, a group of rebels determined to end the North’s tyranny.
Mia must take action if she wants to save those closest to her, but doing so means relying on someone her heart and mind are at odds over. Someone her upbringing has taught her to hate.
I liked this book from the start. It did not take me long to get a good 50 pages into it. However, I felt that the plot slowed down a little bit after that. There were also some small inconsistencies that bothered me. These were not really important for the plot, so it didn’t affect my overall rating of the book much.
Things started to pick up again once I was halfway through the book. I would definitely like to see where the plot will go in the next books, because there are some things left unresolved.
For the next books, I would like to see some more world building. Here is a city divided into two precincts, but we know next to nothing about the outside world. I am curious to see how the world works outside the city limits. I also hope we get to see some more character depth. While I enjoyed the characters, I feel like I do not know them as well as I should like. I’ve also had to reming myself sometimes that these are characters that are 16-17 years old. I realized that I have been viewing characters as my own age, which makes me want to yell at them when they make not-so-smart decisions. Bad me.
Here is what did make me happy character wise: Mia is a teenage girl who can actually think rationally, and talk confidence into herself. I am getting a little tired of the “I-am-so-plain-and-average-until-a-boy-tells-me-I’m-not” characters. If Mia does have confidence issues, it’s because she is basically starving, which is a valid reason to not like your body in my humble opinion. I also loved the relationship between Mia and her best friend Dan. It felt like a really natural brother-sister relationship. Jess annoyed me, but I believe that was kind of the point. Besides, she has her reasons to be like she is.
In short I really enjoyed this book! There is room for improvement writing-wise, but I am definitely going to read the next books too!
Rating: 3.5/5
